There is this story on Tyler Bullion's site trombonechat.com following a transcription of Frank Rosolino's solo on "Too Marvelous for Words"
A guy did a transcription of one of Frank's solos and then when Frank was in town, he went to see him perform.
He proudly showed Frank the transcription without telling him the source.
Frank looked at it and said: "Sh**, I can't play that!!"
This is an excerpt from Mark Weber's fine piece on Supersax on his free-jazz.net blog about what made Frank Rosolino's style unique"
"I called Los Angeles trombonist Michael Vlatkovich to get the lowdown on what Frank Rosolino was all about.
"Mark Weber: Michael what are the distinguishing characteristics of Rosolino's trombone style?
Michael Vlatkovich: He really capitalizes on how the trombone works, using the overtone and lip slurs.
MW: This is something that other players don't employ?
MV: Other trombone players don't use it to the extent that he did. He really works the overtone series, because you hear him doing a lot of arpeggiated stuff. He isn't much of a diatonic player; he leans more towards what's available; he utilizes what the trombone can do. I think he realized early on that it was the way to move quickly around the instrument and it was relatively easy.
MW: Are their standard slide positions on the horn?
MV: In some cases, no. You're really only utilizing a particular position, rather than moving the slide; you're using only one or two positions.
MW: So, from one or two positions you can extract half a dozen notes? It's all lipped?
MV: Yes, of course, the higher you go the overtones get closer together, so there's a point where the position of the slide doesn't matter at all!
